IOC says virus won’t stop the Tokyo Games
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach on Wednesday described Tokyo as the “best prepared Olympic city in history,” even as Tokyo’s governor has requested a state of emergency be declared in response to a fourth wave of the coronavirus sweeping over Japan less than 100 days before the scheduled opening of the Olympic Games.
Japanese health officials are blaming a United Kingdom mutation in the coronavirus for a recent spike in cases. New coronavirus cases in Tokyo nearly doubled from Monday to Tuesday to 711, the largest single-day in increase since February when Japan was in a state of emergency.
In March, Tokyo averaged 300 cases per day.
More than 70% of the Japanese public surveyed in a recent poll conducted by a leading Japanese media outlet said they opposed the games being held as scheduled. The games are supposed to open July 23. A March poll of more than 1,000 Japanese doctors found that 75 percent supported postponing the games. A group of international health experts in a British Medical Journal article last week urged the IOC and Tokyo organizers not to hold the games this summer.
“Plans to hold the Olympic and Paralympic games this summer must be reconsidered as a matter of urgency,” wrote Kazuki Shimizu of the London School of Economics. “Holding Tokyo 2020 for domestic political and economic purposes — ignoring scientific and moral imperatives — is contradictory to Japan’s commitment to global health and human security.”
But Bach, citing the Masters golf tournament and a series of international competitions in Olympic winter and summer sports, insisted the games can be held safely and defended Japan’s right to host the event.
“Look at the Augusta Masters. They took place, international event, no, no problem. Great Japanese victory,” Bach said, referring to Hideki Matsuyama’s victory, during a press conference Wednesday following an IOC executive board meeting. “Why should Japan not be in a position to celebrate their Olympic gold medalists at home at such an event?”
But the Masters only had 88 participants compared with the estimated 11,000plus athletes who are expected to compete in the Tokyo Games. Masters organizers also reduced spectators for this year’s event to a reported 12,000, down from previous crowds ranging from 40,000 to 50,000.
Bach also cited a ban on foreign spectators, restrictions on athletes, officials and the media from leaving the so called bubbles of official Olympic transportation, designated areas at games venues and the Olympic Village or media hotels as a reason for IOC confidence that the games can proceed while still keeping their participants and the Japanese public safe.
The IOC is scheduled to update those restrictions and guidelines, referred to by the organization as “playbooks,” later this month.
Bach reiterated that the IOC will not require athletes and officials to be vaccinated before the games.
“Our position is very clear. You cannot make this compulsory anymore two months before the Games,” Bach said. “But we have been working very hard. What we said from the beginning that we are encouraging and assisting and helping the NOCs [national Olympic committees] and all the Olympic teams to get vaccinated. And in fact we can see very good progress there. The great number of national Olympic committees have already announced their athletes will be vaccinated, including United States and their big team, and a number of others. Other teams have already been vaccinated.
“Some others already have an agreement [with their] government to be vaccinated, and therefore we are not only confident, but I think we can already say now that a really big, big number of the participants living in the Olympic Village will be vaccinated for their own safety, but also we’ve also said from the very beginning in solidarity with the Japanese population.”
Bach’s comments echo similar recent statements by Tokyo 2020 organizing committee officials.
“We’re not thinking of canceling the Olympics,” said Seiko Hashimoto, the Tokyo 2020 executive.
“What we are doing well and what our confidence is coming from is scientific advice and the consultation with experts in everything we’re doing together with the International Paralympic Committee and the [Tokyo] organizing committee, and they’re also learning from these many, many sports events which have been successfully organized without the benefit of the vaccination, so it’s a purely fact-based and scientific-based approach we are taking,” Bach said.
But inadequate testing and a slow vaccination rollout have led to a “poor performance” by Japan in containing the coronavirus, health experts wrote in the British Medical Journal article.
Japanese officials acknowledge the country will not have achieved herd immunity by the time the Olympic Games are scheduled to open. The governor of Osaka, Japan’s secondlargest city, has also called for a state of emergency to be declared.
Fewer than 1% of Japan’s 126 million people have received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Japanese officials extended vaccine eligibility to persons 65 and over on April 12. Agreements between Japanese health organizations and pharmaceutical companies could make other vaccine brands available in the country by the end of the month.
Containing the virus is further complicated by the more infectious United Kingdom variant, Japanese officials said. The mutation is projected to account for 90 percent of all new cases by the end of the month, according to officials.